American culture changed at the turn of the century due to a challenging reestablished social order. Coney Island at the beginning of the twentieth century had a profound impact on societal norms. Outside of Coney Island, women were often treated as inferior while men ruled the throne in nearly all aspects of life. However, within Coney Island the gender gap was equalized. Coney Island served as a medium to a change in the traditional mindset. Here, the hotels, amusement parks, and rides and events that the civilians encountered a display of immorality, fast pleasure and love for profit. As Kasson states "At the turn of the century the nation was beginning a pivotal transition form an economy organized around production to one organized around consumption and leisure as well." Coney Island provided an open minded and progressive atmosphere in which men and women could be equals; which contrasted to the strict gender roles of genteel society. The differences between genteel culture and the new culture of commercial amusements were made clear in Coney Island. As Coney Island receives its fame and fortune first through the upbringing of elegant hotels, men and women began to enjoy themselves to an extent that had been absent in the past. This new culture could take off from their daily work routines and experience a more laid back and negligent approach to life. In the same sense, there were those who escaped from their daily manual labor and experienced an environment that was less stressful and more untailored than what they encounter in life's conventional struggle. There was a point where many values did not matter anymore just as Kasson wrote "Many values preached by genteel reformers and propagated by capitalist employers in the 19th century, such as hard work ,punctuality, thrift, sobriety, self control were geared to the need for productivity." This undoubtedly created a social chaos for the genteel culture that had prevailed up until that time. Coney...

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...﻿Brandon Smith
HIST 2057
2/9/15
“Amusing the Million” Essay
Pre World War I, Coney Island proved itself to be an epicenter of a new, emerging American culture. In this time, American urban populations were quickly growing, immigrant populations were at a peak, and Americans were evolving into a society that allowed for “increased leisure time and spending power.”(Kasson, 7) Different than the previously advocated forms of structured, refined entertainment known to American culture, Coney Island offered a type of entertainment that was less thought provoking in nature, focusing on engaging the senses through whimsy and carefree ventures rather than exercising the mind. The amusement parks of Coney Island accomplished a major feat in an emerging society: they created escape for those who attended and served as a new form of American recreation. Coney capitalized on inciting emotions from their patrons and engaged their need to be free from their everyday lives. Innovative thinking and emerging technological advances of this era made Coney possible. Coney also introduced the idea of a new social order by providing a landscape for people of different classes, nationalities, and social statuses to interact. Coney Island fostered fundamental cultural changes in American society through its lack of rigidity and seriousness that was paramount of American cultural of this era.
At the turn of the century, the U.S. was...

...﻿Amusing the Million
When you hear the name Coney Island you instantly think of excitement, entertainment, and a city where you can escape all responsibilities. This reputation began in the late 19th/early 20th century during a time when the people of America were adjusting to new lifestyles and a new country. The United States was going through an intense urbanization, with new developments in transportation, communication, and other inventions; citizens were living in an America they had never seen before. For a country that revolved around success and the working industry for more than a hundred years, the idea of Coney Island and other types of amusement was both new and exciting for citizens. This excitement led to the success and positive reputation of Coney Island that would continue on for many years to come.
The idea of amusement parks and Coney Island came about by bringing together two concepts that were already present in the new America. The idea of parks and a place of relaxation could be found in places like Central Park in New York City and the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. Frederick Olmsted brought about the idea of Central Park as a concept of democratic recreation. “Olmsted intended the park to serve, above all, as a rural retreat in the midst of a city, an easily accessible refuge from urban pressures and conditions” (12). The idea of the World’s Columbian Exposition came about with the four hundredth...

...labor, and high society to leisure. Though the island didn’t remain on its all-time-high forever, it caused a “turn of the century.” This “turn of the century,” was a vast shift in the mass culture of America.
Before the “turn of the century,” Coney Island consisted of citizens whom abided to an old, reserved set of values (or culture) that America lived by. The culture is commonly referred to as Victorian, and it is believed that American’s lived in more of a Victorian era than England; ironically England was the country reigned by Queen Victoria. Victorian values were values of moral, and self-righteous. In Kasson’s book, it referred to these values as matters of self-control, moral integrity, industriousness, and sober earnestness (Kasson 4). The idea was that all activities whether in the home or at work remained useful. For example while in the home, women or children must be doing labor or anything considered productive. Activities considered as productive were fiction, arts, poetry, or anything pertaining to that matter. Protestant educators, ministers, and reformers were the cultural elites (or genteel reformers) who tried to greatly influence the urban-industrial democratic government. These reformers founded institutions such as libraries, museums, and symphonies, which set a basis for the culture. Unfortunately, the reformers did not grasp the control they sought due to the diversity in American culture.
Coney Island became the place...

...﻿Prompt: “One of the important themes in the class has been “assimilation; ie. The desires and efforts by social reformers to ‘americanize’ various peoples: freed slaves, Indians, immigrants, and so on. ;assimilation; could be problematic, however, because it involved forcing on groups’ various values and viewpoints on other, even if it was done with the best of intentions. Consider ‘assimilation’ in the context of Coney Island amusement parks. According to Kasson’s Amusing the Million, who embraced the “mass culture” embodied by the parks, and why? Who rejected it, and why?”
3-4 pages (700-800 words)
Accepted it: The Young Americans & Immigrants trying to americanize their lives.
It was more thrilling than other options at the time in Manhattan, saving all the money they could.
Coney Island provided a means to participate in mainstream American culture on an equal footing (40).
This new mass culture incorporated immigrants and working-class groups into their forms and values.
Coney Island was entering a world apart from ordinary life, prevailing social stuctures and positions. It also provided and area in which vistitors were temporarily freed from normative demands.
Rejected: Genteel reformers, missed the concept they set forth with Central Park and ‘The White City’.
Coney Island amusement parks began in 1895, before the first World War. This was during the country’s shift to an “Urban-Industrial Society”.
-This...

...﻿Caroline Cosgrove-Richard
Professor Mark Carson
HIST 2057
2 February 2015
Amusing the Millions
With the turn of the century rapidly approaching, a societal turn began to take place in America as well. John Kasson’s Amusing the Millions vibrantly reinforces Coney Island’s role in moving America away from a genteel, Victorian society towards a more vivacious and energetic one, which would ultimately pave the way for today’s society. Kasson accomplishes this by depicting Coney Island’s amusements as reflective of an emerging urban-industrial society, the elaborate use of technology and by also recognizing the similarities between the social structures of Coney Island as it compared to the cities, which, in turn, ushered in cultural changes to everyday life while still providing visitors with an escape from reality.
At the end of the nineteenth century, there were more working class people than ever before in America. As the demand for more industrialized products became greater, the need for workers also increased. While the upper class had various forms of entertainment, the middle and lower classes were not able to enjoy the same luxury. “For many middle-class writers, Coney represented a loss of deference to older genteel standards, a vulgar and disorderly pursuit of sensation rather than the cultivation of sensibility they stood for.” (Kasson, 108). People in the middle...

...﻿Timothy London
Professor Mark Carson
Hist 2057
12 February 2015
Amusing the Million
In John Kasson’s 1978 novel “Amusing the Million”, he presents Coney Island as a revolutionary tool used as an escape from the post-World War One industrialized society. He demonstrates how the genteel culture strived to keep society in control and in order, but was overtaken by the likes Coney Island and other culture shocks. In my opinion, Coney Island was much more than just an amusement park or just an escape for pleasure. It was a symbol for a new cultural order. This paved the way for centuries to come. This is shown by how Coney Island reflected this emerging industrial society, in the differences and similarities in social structure, and how Coney Island represented an escape for all citizens.
Coney Island represented an emerging industrial society when it poked its head after World One. Specifically with the aspect of technology and its advances. This began with the creation of Central Park and the Chicago Exposition. These examples paved the way for places like Coney Island to be established. Also, with inventions like the Ferris wheel by George W. Ferris revolutionized this aspect of the entertainment industry. The emergence of new transportation helped make the trip more affordable and easier, but also showed the how America was becoming increasingly more industrial. Technology was the...

...﻿Reader-response criticism is a school of literary theory that focuses on the reader (or "audience") and their experience of a literary work, in contrast to other schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the author or the content and form of the work.
Although literary theory has long paid some attention to the reader's role in creating the meaning and experience of a literary work, modern reader-response criticism began in the 1960s and '70s, particularly in America and Germany, in work by Norman Holland, Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser, Hans-Robert Jauss, Roland Barthes, and others. Important predecessors were I. A. Richards, who in 1929 analyzed a group of Cambridge undergraduates' misreadings; Louise Rosenblatt, who, in Literature as Exploration (1938), argued that it is important for the teacher to avoid imposing any "preconceived notions about the proper way to react to any work"; and C. S. Lewis in An Experiment in Criticism (1961).
Reader-response theory recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts "real existence" to the work and completes its meaning through interpretation. Reader-response criticism argues that literature should be viewed as a performing art in which each reader creates their own, possibly unique, text-related performance. It stands in total opposition to the theories...

...emotionally progresses in the story and how he develops from being inquisitive, to hostile, to valiant.
The Time Machine is profuse with many different themes. One of the main themes in the story is fear, and the instinct of it. Weena and the rest of the Eloi have an instinctual fear of the darkness, for what is inside of it, the Morlocks. And the Morlocks have an instinctual fear of the light, for they go blind just with the sight of it. The Time Traveler is afraid of losing his only course back home, for he will lose everything. When each of these characters is forced to face their fears, they each have their own reactions specific to their instincts, personalities, and past experiences.
Wells uses cliff hangers and foreshadowing to keep readers on the edge of their seats throughout the book. He does a good job on showing the Time Travelers thoughts and his reactions to the discoveries he makes that give compelling evidence to his ideas of the future. Wells helps you understand motivations and gives clear explanations for better comprehension of the story and . Altogether, I thought The Time Machine was a very enthralling book that was impossible to put down.
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